Kiara Edwards 8/1/2010 Human Nutrition Test Essay 2 Does anyone really know what we are eating? After viewing the documentary Food Inc I have a totally different outlook on the food that many of us consume every day. My daughter, Kiryana my niece, Samya and nephew Xavier watched the video with me they had so many questions ranging from what are they doing to the chickens, why are they hurting the baby chicks, to comments such as auntie I don’t think I want to eat chicken anymore. The Food Inc documentary introduced many people to America’s industrialized food system and its effect on our environment, health, economy and workers' rights. These images of smiling farmers, fields of wheat, hens and their chicks, with cows peacefully grazing in fields actually hides the reality of how a handful of multi-national corporations now control the majority of North American food production.This documentary talked about several issues such as Factory Farming and how approximately 10 billion animals
Cannibalistic Cows April Andrews ENG135 Professor Davis December 15, 2011 American’s diet is in a great dilemma. Just ask anyone where their food comes from, and they will usually say that it comes from the grocery store. However, one might ask where the food in the grocery store comes from. To gain a better understanding of the issues facing American’s eating habits and where its food comes from, Michael Pollen researches these questions in his book, The Omnivores Dilemma. Through his research, he notes that the 100 million head of cattle breed for food are living on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (C.A.F.O.)
Thirty percent of land bases are growing corn. Because of this excess supply of corn, many modifications have been made to it so that it can be used as an ingredient in almost every food. Corn creates products such as high fructose corn syrup. This creates foods that are harmful and unhealthy to the body. A great alternative to these products is organic or farm grown foods.
Josiah Begin 9/10/14 Sanitation Food inc summary Food Inc. is an depth Documentary on how our food is produced and where it comes from. The sad truth is that that most people don’t know where their food comes from. The movie starts off in the marketplace with the, “pastoral fantasy” advertisement on the plastic wrapped meat and poultry of grass fed beef, happily grazing with a cowboy herding them on his horse. Creating the illusion of where the food comes from. The attention is drawn to the unnatural year round tomatoes that are picked green and sprayed with a color enhancement chemical to get redness.
Compared to the wheat that was the most common staple and potatoes, the wheat was inferior in the amount of work it took to grow it, its susceptibility to weather and predators, and most especially, to the amount of calories produced versus the amount taken to work the field. Potatoes gave over three times as much return. And then the population exploded, as Europeans finally had enough to eat and to trade. And how about modern government. Think we got that from the Greeks and Romans?
Pollan made me think of how much corn that I myself consume, to a point II started looking through my own cupboards to check ingredients. The author went into great detail into the science and anatomy of the corn plant. Pollan described the origins of the plant and he went into, what this reviewer feels as an overkill, of the molecular structure that was like a high school science review that escalated to a college botany course. Pollan began talking about the sex of corn and the germination process to a point that I was hearing late night Cinemax background music. When the author traveled to the Iowa farm I found very interesting, as far as the description of the land, the sounds of the tractor and the feel of the weather.
The government or other organization that are concerned should and need to develop new set of policies that don’t subsidize over production and over eating. Pollan argues that corn is being used as substitutes for all other foods. This is why foods at fast-food outlets are cheap, because they are already paid for. “Farmers in the United States have managed to produce 500 additional calories per person every day” (Pollan-20th Paragraph) Pollan gives out a tone between formal and informal towards his audience. With historical references mixed with a conversational tone.
Eli Whitney was the first person to build the cotton gin machine in the 1700’s. This machine separated the cotton seed from the cotton fiber faster than the slaves could do. Whitney machine could clean up to fifty pounds daily making it very profitable for the South. A lot of men lost their jobs because of the cotton gin. But was needed more for clean up after the machine had come through the fields.
Do Corn Subsidies Lead To Obesity? Commodity corn has become a staple crop here in the United States food and agricultural system. “When food is abundant and cheap, people will eat more of it and get fat”(Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan). When Michael Pollan says this he is generally referring to fast food eateries such as McDonalds which use government subsidised corn to make most of their products, including the sweeteners in soda. There are over 14,000 McDonald’s locations in America alone and they made over 8.5 Billion dollars in 2013 alone.
As said by Manoj in an article Ethical and Environmental Reasons for being a Vegetarian, each year 90% of the grain produced in America is used for feeding the livestock such as cows, pigs, lambs and chicken. Every sixteen pounds of grain only gives us one pound of beef. That grain can be used to create bread, cereal, and other food products that can be used to help feed the nation and the nations poor. Along with this, a diet of grains, vegetables and beans will support about 20% more people than a diet of meat will. If we primarily produce vegetables and grains, this will drive down prices, making the food cheaper and more attainable to the nations poor and the planet would be about to support the population.